Hey, Political Scientists!

Next week it looks like I'm going to mostly be over at Greg's place, while he and most of the political world is on vacation. I'm already looking forward to scrounging for posts for Plum Line, but I'd also like to keep something going over here. So if you happen to have an APSA paper you've written that should get some publicity, or if you encounter someone else's paper that deserves a bit more visibility over the next couple of weeks, please let me know! Can't promise anything, but I'm very likely to be looking for items even more now than usual.

Of course, this also applies to new papers (books, chapters, whatever) that aren't for the meetings. And it doesn't have to be political science...I'm open to publicizing material from other disciplines, although I'm certainly less able to figure out if it's any good. I don't do a lot of posts like that, but I'm always open to it. So if you have something, let me know.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Evanna Lynch, 22.

What about some good stuff?

1. Seth Masket on political science and geography.

2. Paul Krugman on good reporting and the blogs. One point I'll make again: from 2009 through 2010, and then on through the courts and through implementation today, the coverage of health care reform has been outstanding. Outstanding. I'd love to see a study comparing it with coverage of Medicare in the 1960s or Social Security in the 1930s; my guess is that it's night and day.

3. The second and third parts of Sean Trende's look at party makeovers. I agree with a lot of this, and it's all worth reading. Again, my big disagreement is that I do think that healthy parties (1) will take better advantage of their time in office, and (2) that will strongly tend to help them stay in office. But I agree with his basic conclusion that out-party dysfunction doesn't have significant electoral effects.

4. Abby Rapoport on pre-K in Houston.

5. And Dan Drezner on networking at the political science meetings.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to David Henrie, 24

And some good stuff:

Do political science majors make good political reporters? Can they get jobs? John Sides discusses, based on new research.

Rick Wilson on "The War on Social Science."

And Dan Drezner is having fun.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Angel Pagan, 32.

Oh, the good stuff (less than usual this week, since I'm over at Greg's place):

Jeanne Zaino on the Congressional attacks on political science.

I agree with Scott Lemieux here.

And I hope I get a chance to discuss this more later today, but I took a shot at Republicans using Philip Klein as an example on Friday, and he responded yesterday.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Jo Ann Pflug, 73.

To the good stuff:

1. Aaron Carroll and Austin Frakt go in depth on yesterday's Oregon Medicaid study. I screwed this up in the Roundup at Greg's place last night, and I shouldn't have. The initial spin was that the study showed no health benefits (while also showing substantial financial benefits) from Medicaid, but that's an incorrect reading. It does show some benefits, but mainly the evidence is inconclusive -- and it's not clear, Carroll and Frakt explain, that the study was able to actually reach conclusions on health outcomes. And at any rate, what evidence there is points in the right direction (that is, in the direction of Medicaid helping people stay healthy), but is not statistically significant -- which is hardly the same thing as a claim of "no effect." Anyway, if you want to know more, click through; Carroll and Frakt walk everyone through it.

(I don't, and can't, read every study for which I link to a blog post or news article which summarizes it. But I need to do better than I did on this one).

2.  Dan Drezner, still a pessimist about political science and Congress.

3. And speaking of that first one: advice from Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, for non-experts, on how to know what to make of quantitative research.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Kirsten Dunst, 31.

No shortage of good stuff:

1. Marc Ambinder notes that we've learned a bit more about the hunt for bin Laden, and it points again to a key point: "Based on what we know SO FAR, torture did not PRODUCE the intelligence leads that led to bin Laden's killing." Of course, the case for and against torture does not turn on this -- but it's still worth knowing which way the evidence points.

2. Elizabeth Drew on "arm-twisting."

3. The president's position on political science -- and the likely effects, from Seth Masket.

4. Ed Kilgore has a good point about the squishes.

5. And Kevin Drum gives some advice for empirical research on Congress.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Louise Lasser, 74.

You come here for the good stuff:

1. The future of political science? Jay Ulfelder is pretty excited.

2. Josh Putnam's latest update on the rules for 2016.

3. A couple of baseball items linked by the idea of agency: Steven Goldman on Branch Rickey; Christina Kahrl on Paul Konerko.

4. And Adam Kotsko has some innovative ideas for how to organize a university. Via LGM.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Clark Gregg, 51.

Good stuff:

1. Melissa Harris-Perry on NSF Funding and Political Science.

2. Good catch from Dave Weigel: once sequestration hit, people lost interest, at least in "sequestration" as a topic. Presumably fully media and politician driven.

3. While sequestration actually is doing pretty much what was expected, as Sam Stein and Amanda Terkel report.

4. And Dylan Matthews has a nice in-on-chart on the various budget proposals. My main caveats: it matters how detailed the plans are (Ryan's, notoriously, are not). It matters, too, as a few of us discussed a while ago, whether it's intended for carrying out, for staking out a negotiating position, or just for use as talking points. The big job of the budgets that passed the House and the Senate were to do just that, to pass on the floor; that's different than saying they are what the parties really want. I mean, it's fair in politics to hold people responsible for their voters, but that's not the only way to look at it.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Buster Posey, 26. Oh, and with ~300 games, he's easily the all-time San Francisco Giants catcher, no?

The good stuff:

1. I know those of you who are not political scientists may not be interested, but I'm going to keep linking to items about the funding fight. The latest: Peter Hanson on the next steps. Also, Seth Masket has four examples of actual political science research.

2. Josh Putnam on Iowa/New Hampshire -- and what the parties are actually concerned about.

3. James Pethokoukis on Amity Shlaes.

4. Alyssa Rosenberg on gender roles and what's wrong with romantic comedies these days.

5. And Matt Yglesias on Star Trek episodes. Have to disagree with him on "Chain of Command." That's the Next Generation Cardassian torture epsiode, and I find it unwatchable; it's exactly that kind episode that Next Generation is easily mocked for. Torture is something that the other guys (and not even other humans, but evil aliens) do, and guess what? It's bad. Also, typical of a more important flaw in that series, which was that few of the two-parters had a payoff that was worth it. I'd recommend Darmok instead.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to James Caan, 73.

Yes, good stuff:

1. How political science should lobby, by Jennifer Victor.

2. Wait -- you mean goofy-sounding research may actually be useful? Carl Zimmer.

3. Gershom Gorenberg on Obama's speech in Jerusalem.

4. Irin Carmon on Justice Ginsburg, abortion, and marriage.

5. And E.J. Graff on marriage.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to William Shatner, 82.

And some good stuff:

1. David S. Bernstein on Elizabeth Warren, Senator (bonus: David on Mo Cowan, Senator).

2. More on defunding political science, from Seth Masket.

3. Useful Suzy Khimm update on where sequestration stands.

4. Good David Roberts item on why climate change is not just another environmental problem.

5. Is it possible that Democrats now have a real, albeit small, electoral plurality favoring them? Molly Ball reports, with quotes from the great Laura Stoker.

6. And thank the writing gods we still have the great Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Political Science as an Interest Group

Dan Drezner has a very pessimistic item on the lobbying power of political scientists. It's good, and I agree with most of it. I do think, however, that political science does have one advantage that virtually no other interest group shares: political scientists just happen to have tons of personal connections with Members of Congress and Hill staff.

The less important factor: many political scientists get to know politicians and their staffs in the course of doing their jobs -- we study them, we invite them to speak to our classes, some of them use our expertise, and more. Most of these interactions are casual and meaningless, but some of them turn into longer-term relationships.

The more important factor: dozens and dozens of political scientists have actually worked on Capitol Hill or on congressional campaigns or both. Some of them as Congressional Fellows, but many of them prior to going to grad school, or (in the case of electioneering) during or after grad school. That translates into dozens and dozens of personal relationships, no?

How many of them are there, and how strong are their relationships with their former bosses and former co-workers? I have no idea! Obviously having the occasional political scientist actually in Congress isn't enough to prevent this sort of thing.

I guess I should note one more thing: there are plenty of Congressional staffers (and campaign professionals) who have at least political science MAs, and a fair number of people who finished or almost finished doctorates. Now, some of them are hostile to political science, no doubt. But surely some of them are disposed to be friendly to political science.

Anyway, all of this should translate into access -- or potential access, at least -- allowing political science to fight well above its weight class. But it's only apt to be successful if it's organized, and as far as I know it really isn't. Getting that organized and effective would seem to me to be the most promising avenue for advocating for the profession, during a time when it's really needed.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Sabrina Le Beauf, 55. Didn't realize she was in a Star Trek.

The good stuff:

1. The Senate, on a voice vote, has cut off (some) funding for political science research. Awful.

2. The Arkansas Medicaid plan. Will it fly? Sarah Kliff examines it.

3. I didn't know about this, and now I do and I'm happy: the British budget box. From Matt Phillips.

4. And Jay Ulfelder wants social scientists to have some fun.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Brent Scowcroft, 87.

Good stuff:

1. Sarah Binder is tracking the CR. Which is easier said than done.

2.  Interesting David Karpf item about technology and politics.

3. And the amazing history of GOP minority outreach: it didn't start in 2013.

Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Rip Torn, 82. Has played Judas. And Nixon. But as far as I know, even though the bulk of his career has been in dramatic roles, he'll be remembered forever because he was a regular in one of the top-five sitcomes of the 1990s and then a recurring character on one of the top-five sitcoms of the 2000s. Just totally wonderful in Larry Sanders.

A little good stuff:

1. John Sides on social science.

2. I keep forgetting that OMB is (still) vacant, too. A little more important than Commerce! Catherine Hollander has the rundown on cabinet and other top posts that need to be filled.

3. And if it's February, it's time to be reading Little Known Black History Facts.

"Fundamentals" Frustration

John Sides isn't quite as frustrated yet about the idea that the economic "fundamentals" of the 2012 cycle make a Mitt Romney victory so inevitable that anything else needs to some fantastic explanation as he is at misreporting of independent voters, but I think he's getting close to breaking out the all-caps.

(Short version again: the prediction models are basically predicting a close race; as I read them, it's with Barack Obama as a slight favorite, but it really depends on how you look at it -- some models predict a Republican win, some a Democratic victory).

I think the level of frustration that John (and some of the rest of us) feel at this has a pretty simple cause: almost everyone who is open to persuasion on this point gets it, and so we don't get any more easy victories. That is, those who are open to reading what political scientists have to say -- and it's an impressive number of reporters, pundits, and practitioners -- are reading the Monkey Cage, reading the other political science blogs, reading evidence-based sites such as Nate Silver's, and taking what they read seriously. Indeed, I've been consistently struck since I started doing this by how many people really do want to learn what political scientists have to say.

The problem is that what's left are those who for whatever reason aren't very interested. There are lots of reason for it...their own biases, in some cases; in others, perhaps incentives for believing, for example, that election results are mainly driven by gaffes and other day-to-day campaigning events (not that campaigns are irrelevant! No one is saying that!).

All of which makes for a lot of frustration. But I do think that the flip side of that frustration is that a lot of progress is being made.

Thinking About How Reporters Think

I strongly agree with this John Sides takedown of a Carlisle Rainey argument that reporters and political scientists differ primarily because reporters are applying different counterfactuals. Rainey gets the stereotypical reporter wrong; Sides is right:

Journalists are interested in measuring the effects of specific new events, new messages, and so on because that is what they are writing about everyday.  It’s not at all newsworthy to muse on what the world would be like if Mitt Romney, the RNC, and GOP-affiliated super-PACs and 501c’s raised no money. It is newsworthy to speculate on what the attacks on Romney’s time at Bain Capital will mean in November.
Similarly, I think journalists are highly attuned to the ways in which campaigns respond to each other.  Indeed, the back-and-forth between campaigns—Obama attacks Romney on Bain, news outlets report on whether Romney really retired in 1999, Romney surrogates go on Sunday shows and talk about “retroactive” retirement, Romney surrogates bring up Teresa Heinz Kerry’s tax returns, etc., etc. —is also what reporters cover everyday.

Where I'd part ways a bit from John is this bit about stereotypical reporters:

Most wouldn’t assume implausibly large effects of events in the average presidential campaign; few would say, I imagine, that Romney’s record at Bain threatens to turn the election into a 1964-style landslide.  But I think they do imagine that such events could make the difference between winning and losing, whereas political scientists are more skeptical or at least more cautious.  

What I'd say is a bit different -- well, not about the "cautious" part of it. Where journalists really differ from political scientists -- and, it's important to emphasize here that we're talking about stereotypical reporters, and many are far better than this -- is that they don't feel an obligation to tally up all the effects that the are describing. The concentration is on, as John says, the day-to-day, but there's no expectation that they'll add up the effects of the effects that believe they see, nor any methodology for doing so. So I think if you added up all the implied effects, you might find that they are implausibly large (I'm thinking in particular of some claims about Ronald Reagan's age joke in the second debate in 1984 here, but I've also seen lots of stuff about the Romney campaign "imploding" over the last week when it's not clear that the Bain stuff will have any effect at all). Although part of what happens here is that reporters can also be quite sensible at times...it seems to me that there's just no connection at times between how they talk about specific events and about the campaign as a whole.

What I'd also add is that in many cases, the reporter is the wrong person to finger. A lot of good reporters-as-pundits are probably reflecting the thinking of participants, and how they experience the campaign. And it's no surprise that campaign professionals and the candidates themselves overemphasize the importance of campaign effects and candidates -- not only because of people naturally tend to inflate their own importance, but because those are the things that matter to them in their lives. That is, those are the things they can have some influence over. Remember my favorite McLaughlin Group thing: they promised (promise? I guess it's still on, somehow) to provide "inside opinions and forecasts" -- not smart opinions and accurate forecasts, but just the ones that insiders held. And they delivered! You can't blame them if the opinions were foolish and the forecasts were wildly inaccurate; all that counted was whether they were accurately sharing what Washingtonians were thinking. That's probably true, without the labeling, for a fair amount of reporting and punditry.

It's also true that while reporters are definitely responsible for some whoppers, a lot of the pundits on TV are neither journalists nor political scientists.

Anyway, on the whole I find John's description of the stereotypical journalist far more accurate than the Rainey version.

Fundamentals and Campaigns 2

Continuing on my reaction to yesterday's discussion of whether a result in this year's election could mean that political scientists have been wrong about presidential elections. In this part: what it might mean if the models do get this year's election wrong.

Noam Scheiber at one point in the twitter thread says that "If Obama wins, it will not be a very good day for political scientists who study US presidential races." Now, I agree with the political scientists in the threat who note that in fact Scheiber is just plain wrong about the prediction models (remember, Larry Bartels has a model which strongly favors Obama, and the general impression I get is that the models overall predict a close race). 

But beyond that: look, there are lots of reasons that a relationship which appeared to exist in the past would not hold up in new events. One is, to be sure, a possibility that the relationship was never there in the first place and that scholars got it wrong. Another possibility, however, is that the relationship held in some circumstances and not in others. For example: it's possible that the relationship between economic performance and vote might turn out to be more complex than previously understood, with new and unexpected results during economic conditions we rarely encounter. If that turns out to be the case (and I'm certainly not saying that it is!), it wouldn't fit Scheiber's put-down: "a theory that says structural factors shld predominate, except when they dont, isnt so impressive." Indeed, that situation would tell us nothing new about the balance between fundamentals and campaigns; it would just say that it's harder to understand the effects of fundamentals. (Indeed, it might be impossible; there could be an underlying real but complex relationship which is impossible to understand from our limited observations, at least beyond a narrow range of typical situations).

And that's not all. Another possibility would be that the world has changed. It's possible, although in my view unlikely at least in the short term, that voters could change over time, becoming more (or less) responsive to campaigns (or that campaigns changed, and become more or less effective at getting to voters). If that's the case (and again, I don't actually see any evidence for it from this campaign), then once again that doesn't reflect badly on political scientists who had the earlier findings; it's just something new to study and understand.

So what would reflect badly on political scientists? Other than that first one (the relationship was never there and people got it wrong), what would in fact reflect badly on us is if we made claims that were too strong based on what we had. I think most of us try to be careful not to do that, but I'm sure I've fallen short at times, and I suspect others have as well; Nate Silver in a post a while ago pulled up several claims about prediction models (not necessarily made by actual political scientists, however) which were way over the top, so obviously there are some mistakes, and I think it's absolutely right when we're called on it. But it's not always easy. I've referred to this in the past...when you're writing for a larger audience it's difficult to include all the proper caveats without sounding wishy-washy and, even worse, so inconclusive that no one is going to read it. Hey, political scientists: if you read something that I write or John writes or Seth Masket writes or one of the others of us writes that sounds too certain, please let us know! I know I definitely want to hear it -- as I always want to hear if I say something based on out-of-date research, or if I just bungle applying perfectly good research to some event.

I think that's it. As I said, I think John's discussion of it is very good, so if you're interested in the substance here you should jump over to him.

Fundamentals and Campaigns

John Sides and Noam Scheiber got in a bit of a twitter fight yesterday about election prediction models, political science, and the 2012 election. John wrote a good piece summarizing his position here; I recommend it highly.

I have two additional points, but it gets lengthy so I'm going to break it up into two posts. This one is about what we mean when we separate "fundamentals" from "campaigns."

John gets to this in comments, but not in the main post: what's generally thought of as the "fundamentals" -- as opposed to the campaign -- should definitely not be thought of as purely economic performance. I think that's especially true on a theoretical level. It's useful for many reasons to separate the campaign from everything else. That "everything else" is going to include political context (is the incumbent running? How long has the incumbent party been in the White House? Is there unified or divided government?) on the one hand, and everything that would go in the category of retrospective voting on the other -- that is, things that would go into a voter's impression of how the president has done. Of that final bit, the economy empirically seems to be the dominant factor, strong enough that you can get fairly close to a useful prediction if you toss out campaign factors and the political context and the rest of the "how are things going" stuff. But then again: you can do better, both in prediction and explanation, if you don't throw that stuff out. Thus we have Hibbs, including casualties from wars; thus we have Abramowitz, including both political context and a presidential approval pre-campaign variable that presumably captures "how are things going" that goes beyond the economy.

I should note, by the way, that for an incumbent president any model that includes approval is going to capture not only how events affected approval, but also how the president's perceived personality and anything else that makes people like or dislikes him affect approval. Given a permanent campaign, one could certainly quibble that these are a type of campaign effect; indeed, even without a permanent campaign, things such as "personality" may wind up created by the incumbent's original campaign. That's all fine, however; what we're trying to separate out are the effects of the (current) campaign, and we're treating how people feel about the president at the beginning of that campaign as separate, even if it was produced by the exact same process. Note too that this means that an incumbent president's personality, then, is part of "fundamentals" while the challenger's personality is part of "campaign," as are all of their other relevant characteristics. Again, you may find that goofy, but there's a logic to it.

(Okay, that's not completely true; if there's something about a president that would affect approval differently than it affects vote choice, maybe it winds up in the "campaign" pot. I think.)

So, again: there are campaign effects and fundamentals. Campaign effects themselves include various things -- issue positions, ads, the candidates, GOTV and other mobilization efforts, and more. Fundamentals include political context stuff and performance stuff, of which the economy has turned out to date to be by far the biggest. The overall finding has been that fundamentals matter more than campaign effects, but that campaign effects are real -- but given that overall campaign effects are of limited (but real!) importance, it's going to be very hard for any specific campaign action, an ad or a debate quip or an issue, to do all that much.

Elsewhere: Elections, NSF, Transition

Yes, it's an election day, and you all know that I love an election day. Sorry I didn't get to post anything here about it, but I did a roundup over at Greg's place. Lots and lots of California primaries today, and at least a few Senate primaries to watch -- Democrats in New Mexico, Republicans in New Jersey, and Republicans and others in California.

Over at Post Partisan, I wrote a defense of political science and social science in response to a Charles Lane column, which took the Flake position. See also Seth Masket and Henry Farrell.

And way back yesterday, I did one also at PP about Mitt Romney and the transition, or I guess the pre-transition. It's mainly about the partisan presidency, but I want to point out that it's a very good sign that he's started the process early.